Comments on Green Fantasy: The GND and Renewable Energy by Jay Lehr and Tom Harris

Jay Lehr of the Heartland Institute and Tom Harris of International Climate Science Coalition wrote an interesting article on the absolute absurdity of the Green New Deal (GND) program of the Democratic Socialists which is on-line at American Thinker, entitled Green Fantasy: The GND and Renewable Energy  It is well worth reading in its entirety, but I am going to note some of its interesting points here and make some comments of my own on GND.

As you should know, the Green New Deal aims to eliminate the use of hydrocarbon fuels removed from the ground over the next 12 years, because its advocates claim that once again the Earth will die along with all humans in that time-frame if we do not do so.  This sort of doomsday prediction is a common claim of religious people who are frustrated by a lack of attention.  Believe our religion or the world will end.  The Green Religion has already given us many the world-will-end deadlines, yet we have managed to survive them all to date.  There have not even been any close calls!

The GND also wants to rid us of nuclear power plants and as many hydroelectric dams as possible in 12 years as well.  For all fossil fuel energy, nuclear energy, and lost hydropower we are to substitute solar, wind, and biofuel power.  The biofuel option is an odd one, since most of the argument against fossil fuels is based on the false claim that the carbon dioxide emissions their use entails will cause catastrophic global warming.  It is as though the Green Religion advocates are ignorant of the fact that the use of biofuels also results in carbon dioxide emissions directly upon their use.

Lehr and Harris make some particularly interesting comments on solar power limitations.  Solar power farms based on silicon photovoltaics produce a national average of 5 to 7 watts per square meter.  The U.S. Energy Administration says that making the photovoltaic material uses 3,370 kilowatt hours of energy per square meter of solar collector surface.  Lehr and Harris noted that solar collectors take up a little over 50% of the area of the land of a solar farm, so one can calculate that even at the 7 W per square meter high end of the solar farm efficiency range, it takes 27.5 years of solar farm operation simply to recover the energy input cost of making the solar collector material, assuming that the collector material covers half of the solar farm land area.  Note that Lehr and Harris say it takes more than 50 years, but they forgot that the collector material covers only a little over half of the area of the solar farm. This does not even count the energy that otherwise went into building the solar farm and operating it for those 27.5 years.  It has to be noted that many solar farms to date have not operated more than a small fraction of 27.5 years before they were abandoned as uneconomical to operate.  No one actually thinks that the average solar farm of the next decade is going to last 27.5 years either.

They also note that even in very sunny areas of the U.S., a 1,000 megawattt solar farm would take 51 square miles of land.  Note that the U.S. uses energy at about the rate of 1.3 x 10¹⁴ W, which requires about 13,000 of these 1,000 megawatt solar farms to replace.  This would require about 663,000 square miles of solar farms, assuming that all of them were in the sunniest parts of the USA.  This is almost exactly the size of Alaska, but Alaska is hardly suitable and even though it is the least inhabited of our states in terms of population density, the Green Religion would never allow its being turned into nothing but solar farms.  Much of southern California might be relatively suitable, but getting all of the Democrat Socialists who live there to move out and make way would meet with their resistance and only provide less than a tenth of the necessary land area.  Probably much less than a tenth given the interference of mountain ranges.  Building such solar farms will always meet with much local resistance.  Before a few hundred such solar farms could be built, the Green Religion would turn massively against them being built anywhere with claims that some subspecies of animal would be threatened or some scenic view ruined.

The Green New Deal is indeed a fantasy.  It is also a nightmare.  Many of its backers have given no thought to whether it is possible.  Many know it is not possible and only want it to be pursued because it will destroy the energy industries we all rely heavily upon. The GND will provide much more power to the government which the Democrat Socialists plan to use to exercise ever greater control over our individual lives.  Controlling our energy use and our healthcare with a government controlled single payer system will make the people nothing but slaves to the Democrat Socialist elite.  Raw and brutally exercised power is the real motivation for the GND and for single-payer healthcare.

Jay Lehr and Tom Harris say that much of their article is based on data and arguments by Bruce Bunker, Ph.D., in his 2018 book The Mythology of Global Warming, published by Moonshine Cove.

Politicized sustainability threatens planet and people by Paul Driessen

It drives anti-fossil fuel agendas and threatens wildlife, jobs, and human health and welfare

Sustainability (sustainable development) is one of the hottest trends on college campuses, in the news media, in corporate boardrooms and with regulators. There are three different versions.

Real Sustainability involves thoughtful, caring, responsible, economical stewardship and conservation of land, water, energy, metallic, forest, wildlife and other natural resources. Responsible businesses, families and communities practice this kind of sustainability every day: polluting less, recycling where it makes sense, and using less energy, water and raw materials to manufacture the products we need.

Public Relations Sustainability mostly involves meaningless, superficial, unverifiable, image-enhancing assertions that a company is devoted to renewable fuels, corporate responsibility, environmental justice, reducing its carbon footprint – or sustainability. Its primary goal is garnering favorable press or appeasing radical environmental groups.

Politicized Sustainability is the untenable, even dangerous variety. It relies on ideological assertions and theoretical models as an alternative to actual outside-our-windows reality and evidence. Like “dangerous manmade climate change,” its real purpose is gaining greater agitator and government control over people’s energy use, lives, livelihoods, liberties and living standards. It reflects an abysmal understanding of basic energy, economic, resource extraction, manufacturing and human rights realities.

The most common definition is that “we may meet the needs of current generations” only to the extent that doing so “will not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

Among other alleged human wrong doing, Political Sustainability thus reflects the assertion that we are rapidly depleting finite resources. Therefore, we must reduce our current needs and wants in order to save those resources for future generations. At first blush, it sounds logical, and even ethical.

However, under sustainability precepts, we are supposed to predict future technologies – and ensure that today’s resource demands will not compromise the completely unpredictable energy and raw material requirements that those completely unpredictable future technologies will introduce. We are supposed to safeguard the assumed needs of future generations, even if it means ignoring or compromising the undeniable needs of current generations – including the needs, aspirations, health and welfare of the most impoverished, malnourished, disease-ravaged, energy-deprived, politically powerless people on Earth.

For thousands of years, mankind advanced at a snail’s pace. Then, as the modern fossil-fuel industrial era found its footing, progress picked up rapidly, until the speed of change became almost exponential. How today is anyone supposed to predict what might be in store ten, fifty or a hundred years from now?

Moreover, as we moved from flint to copper, to bronze, iron, steel and beyond, we didn’t do so because mankind had exhausted Earth’s supplies of flint, copper, tin and so forth. We did it because we innovated. We invented something better, more efficient, more practical. Each advance required different materials. 

Who today can foresee what future technologies we will have … and what raw materials those future technologies will require? How we are supposed to ensure that future families can meet their needs, if we cannot possibly know what those needs will be?

Why then would we even think of empowering activists and governments to regulate today’s activities – based on wholly unpredictable future technologies, lifestyles, needs and resource demands? Why would we ignore or compromise the pressing needs of current generations, to meet those totally unpredictable future needs?

“Resource depletion” claims also fail to account for new technologies that increase energy and mineral reserves, reduce their costs – or decrease the need for certain raw materials: copper, for instance, because lightweight fiber optic cables made from silica (one of Earth’s most abundant minerals) can carry thousands of times more information than a huge bundle of copper wires that weigh 800 times more.

In 1887, when Wisconsin’s Hearthstone House became the world’s first home lit by hydroelectric power, no one could foresee how electricity would come to dominate, enhance and safeguard our lives in the myriad ways it does today. No one could envision the many ways we generate electricity today.

120 years later, no one predicted tiny cellular phones with superb digital cameras and more computing and networking power than a big 1990 desktop computer. No one expected that we would need so much cadmium, lithium, rare earth metals and other raw materials to manufacture thousands of wind turbines.

No one anticipated that new 4-D seismic, deepwater drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies would find and produce so much oil and natural gas that today we still have at least a century’s worth of these vital energy resources – which “experts” had just told us we would run out of in only a few more years.

And yet, we are still supposed to predict the future 50 or 100 years from now, safeguard the assumed needs of future generations, and ignore the clear needs of current generations. We are also supposed to presume that today’s essential natural resources have to last forever. In reality, they only have to last long enough for our creative intellects to discover real, actually workable replacements: new deposits, production techniques, raw material substitutes or technologies.

Of course, all of this is irrelevant to Politicized Sustainability dogma. That doctrine focuses on ridding the world of fossil fuels, regardless of any social, economic, environmental or human costs of doing so. And regardless of whether supposed alternatives really are eco-friendly and sustainable.

For example, mandated U.S. ethanol quotas eat up 40% of this nation’s corn, grown on over 36 million acres of cropland, to replace 10% of America’s gasoline. Corn ethanol also requires billions of gallons of water, and vast quantities of pesticides, fertilizers, tractor fuel and natural gas … to produce energy that drives up food prices, damages small engines, gets one-third fewer miles per gallon than gasoline – and during its entire production and use cycle emits just as much carbon dioxide as gasoline.

Imagine replacing 100% of US gasoline with corn ethanol. How would that in any way be sustainable?

Mandated, subsidized wind energy requires millions of acres for turbines and ultra-long transmission lines … and billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, rare earth metals and fiberglass. The turbines’ subsonic noise and light flicker create chronic health problems for susceptible people living near them, and kill millions of birds and bats annually – to produce expensive, intermittent, unreliable electricity that must be backed up by dozens of fossil fuel generators or billions of (nonexistent) land- and resource-intensive battery arrays. 

Meanwhile, American and Canadian companies are cutting down thousands of acres of forests and turning millions of trees into wood pellets that they truck to coastal ports and transport on oil-fueled cargo ships to England. There the pellets are hauled by truck and burned in place of coal, to generate electricity … so that England can meet its renewable fuel targets. How is this sustainable – or “climate friendly”?

Why not just build the fossil fuel power plants … mine for coal and frack for natural gas to fuel them – or build more nuclear power plants – and forget about the ethanol, wind turbines, wood pellets and other pseudo-renewable, pseudo-sustainable false alternatives … until something truly better comes along?

Meanwhile, more than 1.2 billion people still do not have electricity. Another 2 billion have electrical power only sporadically and unpredictably. Hundreds of millions get horribly sick, and five million die every year from lung and intestinal diseases that are due to breathing smoke from open fires … and not having refrigeration, clean water and safe, bacteria-free food.

As Steven Lyazi has noted, these people simply want to take their rightful, God-given places among Earth’s healthy and prosperous people. Instead, they’re being told “that wouldn’t be sustainable.” They’re being told they must be content with a few wind turbines near their villages and little solar panels on their huts – to charge cell phones, pump a little water, power a few light bulbs and operate tiny refrigerators.

Politicized Sustainability is irrational, unjust, inhumane, eco-imperialistic and environmentally destructive. It is especially harmful to the world’s poor. It’s time to rethink and overhaul this insanity.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and other books on public policy. 

The Coming Fascist Human Cost-Benefit Analysis

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must consider whether carbon dioxide was a pollutant and if it was, then it must regulate its generation under the 1990 Clean Air Act. No one in Congress in 1990 would have conceived of CO2 as a pollutant. Now the EPA has ruled that CO2 is a pollutant and is proposing new rules under the Clean Air Act for reducing CO2 emissions, which means for reducing the use of energy. Now, bureaucrats in the EPA will rule our energy use without input from Congress. To be more exact, Congress can have input with new legislation, but if that should not happen, then the EPA will go it alone without any real Congressional authorization. This makes Obama King, since he controls the EPA bureaucrats.

It appears that some of the less socialist Democrats in the Senate are balking at some of Obama's proposed budget calls for expenditures and for a cap-and-trade form of carbon tax. He may remove some of the restrictions he had planned to have authorized by Congress from the budget. This is little cause for relief, since he will be able to do very nearly as much mischief through EPA mandates and rulings thanks to the Supreme Court's foolish ruling in 2007.

Obama is planning to proceed with huge further spending in the budget on alternative energy, which supplements the large spending on alternative energy already in the stimulus bill. This is a very curious business, since alternative energy:

• addresses the fictional problem of man-made global warming due to CO2 emissions
• is itself fictional as a route to energy independence
• is, and likely will long remain, much more expensive energy than that from fossil fuel and nuclear power plants
• is not environmentally friendly enough to suit many environmentalists
• cannot be implemented due to the hugely obstructionist work of some environmentalists to use the courts and local permitting authorities to stop all work on new plants, facilities, and electric power lines

On the obstructionist tactics at the local level, see this article in The Wall Street Journal by Ian Talley called "Green Push Faces Resistance From Locals." Among many other examples, this article provides confirmation of my assessment in my prior blog entry of "Wind Power Delays and Limits" of 24 March 2009 that no large photovoltaic solar facilties will be really allowed to cover large acreage in the Southwest, or anywhere else. The relevant quote from The Wall Street Journal articles is

Earlier this month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pledging to fight against building a solar project on 600,000 acres of federal land between the Mojave desert preserve and the Joshua Tree National Park. The area lies in a California-designated renewable zone where companies have applied to establish hundreds of solar projects.

So, why does Obama (and a large following of other Democrats) want to follow through with huge spending plans on alternative energy research, development, and building projects? Surely he has enough contacts with rabid environmentalists to understand that they are not going to allow alternative energy projects to actually be built on the necessary scale to replace fossil fuels and nuclear power. His reasoning is this:

• He is not doing it out of concern for the environment - that is just the excuse for defalcating the private sector of its taxes and its obedience.
• He loves the power of waving huge sums of money in front of those who are willing to try to develop alternative power solutions or who are simply happy to take the money fraudulantly.
• He knows that by cutting off fossil fuel and nuclear power use, he can control the entire economy and push it into a state of socialist dependency.
• He knows the constant fights for local building permits and in the courts will provide huge incomes for many lawyers, who are the Democrats' largest campaign fund raisers.
• He knows that the required environmental inpact statements will provide work for huge numbers of environmental "experts" and many lawyers, again funding key Democrat backers.
• The power to make decisions on which "environmental" concerns are important enough to stop hugely funded capital investments gives government authorities huge power over large sums of non-tax money, forcing energy companies to make huge campaign contributions.

In sum, Obama is pursuing the alternative energy and anti-fossil fuel/nuclear power thrust in order to gain nearly unlimited power in the fulfillment of his dream of creating a socialist United States of America. He will cut down the wealthy and make them grovel at his feet in a greatly reduced status.

Ultimately, the Fascist Socialist State will decide if each human being is worthy of life. Is this human being worth his cost as a polluter, including his use of fossil fuels, the methane he produces by farting, and the CO2 he breathes out. Is this human being worth his medical costs? Is he worth the space his housing takes up? In Nazi Germany, the mentally incompetent, the old, the Jews, the Gypsies, many of the Slavs, and many of the German opposition were not worthy of life and were executed by the powers who made similar decisions. It was no mistake when Obama tried to appoint Chas Freeman as the Chairman of the National Security Council who said that China's leaders had failed to use the force they should have early to control the protests in Tiananmen Square. No, this choice was very revealing of Obama's plans for Americans.

As an outspoken individualist champion, I will be one of the early ones to be executed in this future Fascist State. But, they will come for many others, perhaps you, especially since you are the kind who has read some of my writings. We must stop them now. This is not a matter of protecting some comforts, it is really about protecting life itself, especially thinking life.

The Fly Ash Environmental War on Coal

Robert Tracinski has directed my attention to a report in the New York Times called Coal Ash Spill Revives Issue of Its Hazards in which every effort is made to scare people into believing that coal ash or fly ash is hazardous, while giving them few facts to support that thesis. Let us examine what is said about its dangers. The article about the recent quasi-government TVA power and water authority fly ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee says,

Federal studies have long shown coal ash to contain significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and selenium, which can cause cancer and neurological problems.

“Most of that material is inert,” said Gilbert Francis Jr., a spokesman for the authority. “It does have some heavy metals within it, but it’s not toxic or anything.”Mr. Francis said contaminants in water samples taken near the spill site and at the intake for the town of Kingston, six miles downstream, were within acceptable levels.

But a draft report last year by the federal Environmental Protection Agency found that fly ash, a byproduct of the burning of coal to produce electricity, does contain significant amounts of carcinogens and retains the heavy metal present in coal in far higher concentrations. The report found that the concentrations of arsenic to which people might be exposed through drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold.

Similarly, a 2006 study by the federally chartered National Research Council found that these coal-burning byproducts “often contain a mixture of metals and other constituents in sufficient quantities that they may pose public health and environmental concerns if improperly managed.” The study said “risks to human health and ecosystems” might occur when these contaminants entered drinking water supplies or surface water bodies.

The contents of coal ash can vary widely depending on the source, but one study found that the mean concentrations of lead, chromium, nickel and arsenic are three to five times higher in the Appalachian coal that is mined near Kingston than in Rocky Mountain or Northern Plains coal.

Stephen A. Smith, the executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said it was “mind-boggling” that officials had not warned nearby residents of the dangers. “The fact that they have not warned people, I think, is disastrous and potentially harmful to the residents,” Mr. Smith said. “There are people walking around, checking it out.” He and other environmentalists warned that another danger would arise when the muck dried out and became airborne and breathable.

Another 2007 E.P.A. report said that over about a decade, 67 towns in 26 states had their groundwater contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps. For instance, in Anne Arundel County, Md., between Baltimore and Annapolis, residential wells were polluted by heavy metals, including thallium, cadmium and arsenic, leaching from a sand-and-gravel pit where ash from a local power plant had been dumped since the mid-1990s by the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. Maryland fined the company $1 million in 2007.

Let us try to do some critical thinking here. The first quote says that coal ash contains significant quantities of lead, arsenic, and selenium. Of course, this may well mean that some coal ash does or that the average amount is in some context considered significant. That context may be that drinking water over a lifetime which has high concentrations of coal ash in it, may cause the occasional cancer or neurological disease. Perhaps if most of a spill is cleaned up in 8 weeks, there is no reason to believe any harm is likely. Or, maybe this coal ash either does not have the heavy metals in it or they are in a form which does not readily leach into water, especially in the winter when the water is cold.

Then there is the EPA report which says that arsenic from fly ash might cause a 100-fold increase in cancer. Again, does that apply to this TVA plant's fly ash? It may not have arsenic in high enough concentrations to significantly exceed that we digest from food or breathe in from normal dust. As for the 100-fold increase in cancer, that could mean that the probability for 100,000 people of one person getting cancer rises from 0.0001 to 0.01. There may be many other dangers we all face daily that exceed the danger of this 100-fold increase in the likelihood of cancer. We surely need more information before we go off half-cocked and screaming that we are in mortal danger.

The National Research Council report quote is full of maybes and mights. Again, it is difficult to assess the real danger from this. This might just be a case in which they are calling for more study of the issue and are not issuing a declaration of real danger. Or again, the situation may be such that some fly ash under certain conditions does pose a real danger, but suitable response to the fly ash spill at the TVA plant can mitigate these concerns.

The comment that the mean lead, chromium, nickel, and arsenic concentrations in Appalachian coal is three to five times higher than in Rocky Mountain or Plains States coal may simply mean that fly ash from those coals is rarely, if ever, of danger and that Appalachian coal ash is occasionally dangerous. But, once again we have no definition of what situations are dangerous.

The next comment that the fly ash might become airborne and breathable may be nonsense. If it were inclined to become airborne, it would seem unlikely that the plant would have been allowed to pile it up in the first place. It would have been blown away and many complaints would have been issued. The fly ash materials I have analyzed in my lab were too coarse-grained and heavy to become airborne. These were commonly being investigated as additives to concrete or other composite materials and may not have been representative of all coal ash post-combustion products, but my first point seems to indicate that they likely are. Generally, the coal plants would not like to have a fine powder waste product to have to contend with, so I am sure that they have a preference for a coarse-grained product.

The last quote that 67 towns in 26 states had their groundwater contaminated by heavy metals from fly ash dumps may very well indicate a real problem. Yet, any amount of a heavy metal may be called contamination, though its concentration is way below the level sufficient to do any proven harm. Perhaps they mean that there was proven harm in these cases, but one cannot tell this from the quote. When there is, then it is reasonable to require that fly ash with leachable heavy metals is stored in such a way that any leachate is contained and rendered harmless. This may be necessary at some vulnerable sites or with some types of fly ash.

The article gives one the sense that the author is delighting in finding the TVA irresponsible. Of course, the TVA was irresponsible in allowing the earth dam holding the fly ash back to break. This semi-governmental agency was cavalier with the public safety in that the fly ash might have killed people as it flowed downhill and it certainly did great property damage. Possibly, the TVA was also cavalier from the contamination standpoint even when the fly ash was contained. But, the laboratory analyses of the town's water did not show that it was dangerously contaminated, at least yet. Perhaps, depending on where the town's water comes from, it might be so in time. We cannot tell from the article. What we can see in the article is a consistent attack on the use of coal to generate electric power. More than 50% of our nation's electricity is generated from coal-fired power plants. These cavalier environmental extremists are threatening half of our electricity supply with an as yet very weak case against the environmental hazards of coal.

It is also a valid concern that cutting off 50% of our electricity would bring major hazards to people. Going up and down stairs in the dark is less safe than doing so with the lights on. When refrigerators and freezers suffer a power outage, food spoils. Many people will not throw it all away, so some may be likely to suffer increased food poisioning. Some people with medical problems must have reliable electricity. Many businesses need reliable electricity and will generate faulty, dangerous products without it. Other businesses will go out of business and former employees may blow their brains out in their depression due to losing employment and benefits. If we turn away from coal, which presently produces relatively inexpensive electricity, to more expensive alternatives, many people will feel they are less able to afford medical expenses and will forego medical examinations and treatments. This is a real danger. Attempts to improve human safety can be very complex and should be thought through with great care.

Of course, it would be a very good thing to greatly increase our use of nuclear power. It has an excellent safety record.

Europe's Climate Change Leadership

In March 2007, the European Union pledged that by 2020 it would cut carbon emissions by at least 20% from 1990 levels, get 20% of its energy from renewable sources, and make energy efficiency improvements of 20%. Apparently, it was thought to be politically cute to aim for a series of 20% goals for 2020! Better to be cute than rational in politics.

My 14 November 2008 post addressed Europe's leadership also based on a commentary by Driessen. An article in The Economist in the 4 October 2008 issue adds some information on this issue. It says almost every European country is now complaining about their agreement. Britain says it cannot meet the renewable energy goal and Ireland wants protection for its grass-fed cows which emit large volumes of methane. But, most plaintively, the countries of Eastern Europe are worried and upset by these accords.

Poland gets over 90% of its electricity from coal-fired plants. They hope to replace the present power plants with clean coal technology and nuclear power in time, but they are worried about the intermediate timescale. UBS produced a report in February 2008 that the tax on carbon will be so high that 43% of Europe's coal-fired power plants will switch to natural gas. Well, Poland has huge coal reserves, but it has to import natural gas mostly from Russia! So, for understandable reasons of national security, it is very loathe to become dependent upon Russia for its ability to generate electricity. Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary joined Poland on 26 September to sign a joint declaration that the European climate change program would greatly increase their dependence on some countries for their natural gas supply. Apparently they did not have the gumption to state that it was Russia they were worried about.

The Eastern European countries have good reason to worry. In March 2007, the EU pledged "solidarity", a word so associated with socialism that it makes my stomach crawl, should energy supplies be cut-off. They called for increasing the energy supplier vendors and the Nabucco pipeline to bring gas from the Caspian Sea area without passing through Russian control. But, EU countries are individually making deals to undermine Nabucco, such as Germany supporting the Nord Stream gas pipeline deal with Gazprom. Europe's backbone was found to be a flimsy reed during the war in Georgia, with Russia's role as energy supplier being a part of the reason for European accommodation.

Russia is clearly doing everything it can to make Europe its energy hostage. Russia is investing in new pipelines to deliver gas to Europe. It is even trying to control a pipeline from Nigeria to Europe. It is also building a nuclear power plant in its little Kaliningrad enclave, the same one it is putting missiles in aimed at Europe, which is too big for Kaliningrad's needs. They plan to sell carbon-free electricity to Poland, Lithuania, and other nearby countries. Russia is clearly using energy as a means to control and intimidate Europe.

It sure would make more sense for Europe to take its chances that a little more CO2 will do less harm than being beholdened to Russia. If the earth should warm a few tenths of a degree, this would simply be the equivalent of moving a few miles to the south, while Russian control would be as chilling as moving to the North Pole.

Driessen -- Second thoughts on warming

Paul Driessen, senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and its Stop the War on the Poor campaign and author of "Eco-Imperialism: Green Power -- Black death," wrote an interesting commentary in today's Washington Times called "Second thoughts on warming." He opens with:

President-elect Barack Obama wants to phase out coal-based electricity generation, switch to renewable energy and follow Europe's lead on climate change. That could prove difficult.

Coal generates half of all U.S. electricity. Wind provides less than 2 percent of all electricity and cannot be relied on when it's needed. Europe's lead can't even be defined, much less followed.

He describes the "leadership" offered by Europe:

• The Kyoto Protocol called for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. At this time, Spain is 37% above that level, while Austria is 30%, Denmark 19%, and Portugal 17% above the target level. The EU changed its goal in 2007 to an emission cut of 20% by 2020. Now many countries believe that too ambitious.
• German Chancellor Merkel promised to eliminate coal and nuclear power in 2006. Now she wants more nuclear and coal power plants and wants to reduce emissions restrictions on chemical, steel, manufacturing, cement, and auto industries.
• Austria and Italy also want emissions requirements eased.
• The Eastern Bloc nations all want exemptions from emissions restrictions. They depend upon coal for 90% of their electricity and believe Communism held their economies back for 50 years and now they want to catch up.
• Britain finds 5.5 million households living in "fuel poverty" due to climate taxes and high energy prices. Many factories are threatening to shut down for the winter.

Driessen says "Following these examples makes sense. But that's probably not what Mr. Obama or environmentalists have in mind." You can bet that they have no interest in a rational plan.

• China and India are rapidly building coal-fired electric power plants and are rightfully mostly concerned with combating poverty. They figure they can better respond to any warming that might occur later if they are not so poor and technologically backward.
• African nations are putting their priorities rightfully on having affordable and reliable energy, safe water, modern hospitals, refrigeration, and the reduction of lung and intestinal diseases. Wind and solar power are not high priorities.

Meanwhile in the U.S.:

• Emissions are 23% above the Kyoto Protocol requirement, had we signed it.
• But, the growth of our emissions since 2000 is only 0.2% per year.
• Al Gore flies only private jets, owns a fancy houseboat, and uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans use in total in a year.
• Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade will cost more than $7 trillion. Now, many Democrats want a cap-and-trade law which will cost much more.
• Hydrocarbons provide 85% of U.S. energy [and will all be hit hard by cap-and-trade, causing hydrocarbon energy cost to soar. All other energy costs will also soar due to increased demand for these other forms of energy.]
  
• The EPA wants to micromanage our complete energy system and hence the entire economy.
• Even without further new restrictions, we face brownouts and blackouts at unprecedented levels in 2009.

Obama will not be following Europe's lead on this. HE, Pelosi, and Democrat Congressional Socialists will be setting new records in insanity. When winter comes and we cannot afford to heat water so we can take showers, then we will be following BO and the French. This odor emissions problem will not be addressed with anything like the urgency which should attend to it. The good news is that we will be keeping our buildings so cold that we will perspire less. Chatter, chatter, shudder, shudder......The new U.S. energy plan is plenty of covers and some serious bundling. Uhhh... you had better have some company under those covers to share body heat with.

Walter Williams on Congressional Problem Creation

Prof. Walter E. Williams has written a short commentary on a number of problems caused by Congress and the Presidents. These problems then become the justification for Congress taking still more control of industries and the economy, which will cause still more problems. These will newer problems will be used to justify still more Congressional controls and, happily for Congress, lead to still more problems, which will .......

He discusses the effects of The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve Bank, Congressional limitations on oil and gas exploration, refineries, and nuclear power, and the ethanol fuel mandates and food prices.